Emotional Availability in Group:
Expanding Capacity for Intimacy in Group Members and Leaders

With Jeffrey Hudson, M.Ed, LPC, CGP

Jeff Hudson’s group leadership is guided by a belief that our clients can unconsciously know what we are open to experiencing emotionally and what we are reluctant to experience. He is a strong proponent of group membership as a component of a therapist’s professional and personal growth.

As psychotherapists we routinely work with our patient’s availability for emotional engagement. Our success depends, in part, on our own emotional availability. During this workshop we will examine both the openness and resistance to emotional involvement in groups. We will discuss common sources of resistance for both members and leaders. As we deepen our understanding of resistance, we can more readily welcome both positive and negative transferences.

Additionally, we will explore Modern Psychoanalytic approaches to working with resistance, such as joining, emotional communication, and contact functioning.

Saturday Didactic: “Enriching the Group Experience: A Focus on Emotional Availability”, “Five Principles of Modern Psychoanalytic Treatment”

Sunday Didactic: “Expanding the Capacity for Intimacy in Group Therapy”, “The Role of Acceptance in Effective Group Leadership”

Jeff is a group psychotherapist in private practice in Austin, Texas. He is a former President of the Austin Group Psychotherapy Society and has served two terms on its Board of Directors. He is also a Fellow of the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA) and has served on the Board of the Group Foundation for Advancing Mental Health since 2006. In 2007, Jeff co-founded AGPA’s first local committee to raise scholarships for the Annual Meeting. Jeff is currently in his second term as Vice Chairman of the Group Foundation.

A frequent presenter on group treatment at the local and national level, Jeff’s psychotherapy practice includes both solo and co-leadership of therapy and training groups, including a training group in Nashville, Tennessee. In his work with group therapists, Jeff is especially interested in the influence of personal history on group leadership.

Objectives:

At the end of the workshop participants will be able to do the following:

Workshop Pricing:

What to Expect in Experiential Small Groups

At CGPS Workshops, our experiential small groups are really the heart of our workshops. We invite speakers to enhance our knowledge of topics that can be applied to group therapy. In these groups, members observe themselves in the process of being in a group and, though not designed to be a therapy or discussion group, therapeutic experiences tend to happen. The groups are non-directive; that is, the leader sets no agenda, but simply holds space for whatever arises. Group leaders have different styles, based on their theoretical orientations. While the topic of the workshop might surface or come to light in the group process, it is not explicitly related or formally connected to the small groups. The purpose of the small groups is to learn about the experience of being in a group, rather than focus on the workshop topic.

Experiential learning of group process is centered in the individual being a member of a group in which the group’s primary task is for the group to study itself. This means that each person is as responsible as the next for what happens, or does not happen, in that group. The group’s leader offers comments as to themes, elements, and dynamics they observe as the group works to develop itself. How the group unfolds, how group norms are set for members, for whom and how leadership in the group emerges, what roles members take on, etc. are all part of group process. It is a unique opportunity for individuals to study not only how a group works, but also to learn about their own experience within an unfolding group and how members’ behavior and attitudes impact one another in a group. Participants are asked to be present for all of the small group meetings to the extent that is humanly possible.

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